Orientation

I've always said the last thing I needed was a blog. Sometimes, though, I feel like I'm screaming in the wilderness, rarely heard, and even more rarely understood. See, I'm an INFJ. If that doesn't mean anything to you, it's part of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I learned about this way of looking at personalities when I was a teenager and I fell in love with it because it gave me a way of understanding myself and the people around me.

I could explain what an INFJ is, but this person did it better, so just read this: http://www.personalitypage.com/INFJ.html

By the way, me providing a link to an already written explanation, saving my energy for other things, well, it's very INFJ of me. Now, if you peruse the INFJ profile closely, you may have noticed I am in the 1%. (No, sadly, not that 1%.) Imagine if 99% of the population thought differently than you did. You might feel a little misunderstood, too.

Also, I refer you to the INFJ profile to prove it is not my fault that I have a messy desk. Actually, I have two, my messy computer desk, and my messy art desk, which is contained within my studio, also known as The Avalanche. No, I don't have any pictures of it. See, we INFJs don't believe in pictures. Well, I don't know that for sure, but I suspect we don't. I know I don't. Whenever someone asks me for a picture of my studio, me, my cat, etc., my response is "Use your imagination."

Imagination is a great thing. It can save you a lot of energy. For instance, sometimes I think about organizing my messy desk and I just imagine it organized. I then realize that the image of an organized desk creeps me out.....kind of the way markers/paints/crayons anything else arranged in rainbow order creeps me out. (When I buy a new set of markers/paints/crayons the first thing I do is take them out of rainbow order before I hyperventilate.) Once I've imagined it and viewed the image with horror, I have a reason not to organize and I can do something else. Yay!

We INFJs really like our silence and solitude. If we don't get enough of it, we might stab you with scissors. (I firmly believe Boo Radley of To Kill A Mockingbird was an INFJ.) I am an incredibly social person, but most of my social life is online, and I prefer it that way. A recent trip to an art gathering in Portland, though, reminded me that it's sometimes good to get out of the house. After all, even Boo Radley got out of the house and sat on the porch swing with Scout.

Other things you might have noticed in the INFJ profile, we are very stubborn. Of course, at least according to the profile, we are usually right. This is where we differ from INFPs. (My mom was an INFP so I have great insight into them. INFPs don't care that they are right. Some of them even go to the extraordinary length of believing there is no "right"--that maybe several different viewpoints can be "right." That's about as far as she and I would get into that conversation. Too much further and my brain might have exploded.) In other words, we INFJs know we are right and really care that we are right and get really pissed off when other people don't realize we're right....and that happens a lot since we're only 1% of the population.


Did you catch the part about INFJs and how their intuition borders on being psychic? Uh, yeah. More on that later. As it is, I have already revealed enough for one day and need to return to my silence and solitude.

Oh, and yes, I realize there are no nifty graphics or anything on this blog. I reserve the right to add them (or not) in the future. Until then, use your imagination.